A complete know-how on backing up WordPress as a Beginner

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A complete know-how on backing up WordPress as a Beginner

June 11, 2015

by admin

This is a guest contribution by Ava Garcia, aa passionate WordPress developer who likes to share her knowledge about latest development in the web technology. She can turn to be your best choice if you’re searching renowned WordPress expert for hire purpose. She has more than 5 years of experience in the field and is currently working at OSSMedia – a reputed web development company.

Cyber attacks can occur anytime. In-line with this reality, it is imperative to maintain your website’s security by taking a complete backup of all the vital files and folders associated with the smooth operation of your portal. Paying heed to the fact that WordPress is a leading solution for running websites and blogs, it doesn’t come as a surpise that hackers find it an easy target. So, if you too are running WordPress powered blog/site, then taking a complete backup of all files/folders will save you from falling prey to an unwanted situation like a server crash or a hacker attack. In today’s post, you’ll find interesting insights on taking a full backup of your WordPress site/blog.

A closer look at performing a manual backup of your WordPress posts and pages

Well, there are two ways of backing up WordPress posts/pages manually:

Exporting all the content comprising of images, text etc.

Performing a full backup

Let me make you understand the two techniques one by one:

Exporting content

This is perhaps the simplest methods of taking a backup of your WP Posts and pages. Here, you simply need to login to WP admin dashboard, select Tools-> Export and after landing on Export screen, just select “All Content” and finally click on the “Download Export File” button. The screen-shot for this is shown below:

Clicking on “Download Export File” will give you XML file which can further be used for importing the posts, pages, tags, categories and users into the new WordPress installation or an entirely different WordPress blog. The only downside of this step is that it doesn’t allow you to save the theme or plugin settings for your WordPress website/blog.

Performing a full website/blog backup

For performing a full WordPress backup, just ensure to have an access to the phpMyAdmin area within the cPanel of the hosting account. Once you have the same in place, just follow the below steps:

Step 1- Login to the hosting account’s cPanel and scroll down to view the phpMyAdmin section. Click on this section to reach the phpMyAdmin screen as shown below:

Step 2- On the above page, towards the left side, you’ll be able to view a list of databases. Click on the database which is holding your blog and further click on “Export” tab placed toward the top of the page. Screen-shot for this is shown below:

Step 3- On the above screen, ensure that the Export methods is chosen as “Quick” with format being set to “SQL”. Finally, click on “Go” button and you’ll get a SQL file that can be later used for restoring your site’s database.

Step 4- Now that you’ve backed up your database, it’s time to backup the wp-content folder. For this, just click on ‘File Manager’ and select public_html folder, a screen similar to this will appear on your monitor:

Here, click on the wp-content folder and further press the ‘Compress’ button to reach a new page which is similar to this one:

On this screen, just select the option for zip compression and further click on ‘Compress File(s). You’ll receive a zip folder in your website’s root folder called public_html. Once the process of compressing the files is done, just double-click to download the same, followed by storing it to a safe location.

Now, let me make you understand the process of backing up WordPress using a plugin

At the outset, WordPress Plugin Development has allowed us to enjoy multiple benefits associated with varied WordPress plugins. Here, the WP plugin that I’ll be using for taking a complete backup of WordPress site/blog is BackWPUP which can be downloaded for free from WordPress’ official plugin repository.

Step 3– Once you’re done with installing the plugin, just click on “Add New Job” to reach the below page:

On the above page, provide a suitable name to the job. I would recommend setting the name as your-site-name-backup.

Now, if you’re interested in backing up your entire website, then select all the options except check tables. You can set your archive to zip and choose a preferred method of saving the backup. I’d advise you to save the backup on Dropbox as it is a reliable cloud storage service. This is exactly what I’ve myself done in this tutorial.

Step 4– After having clicked on the checkbox which asks you to save the backup to Dropbox, go ahead with authenticating the backup with your Dropbox account and offering the plugin permission to store the files on Dropbox.

Step 5– Now, under Files tab, select just the wp-content folder, leaving all the other options unchecked.

Step 6– Lastly, under the Schedule tab, go ahead with selecting the option for wp-cron, followed by setting a suitable frequency of the backup. While choosing the backup frequency, do remember that if you post articles multiple times a day, then the daily option would be the best match or even a weekly selection would work for you. Once you’re done with providing your preferences, simply click on ‘Save Changes’ and you’ll get an automatic backup of your WordPress website.

That’s it!

Conclusion

When it comes to backing up a WordPress website/blog, it’s obvious to get confused due to the availability of varied options. I hope the details mentioned in my post would aid you the next time you’re planning to backup your WordPress site/blog for a prolonged presence over the web.